Science seeks certitude. Man is naturally curious about two fundamental problems which are contained in the sentences: Whence this world? And Who am I? When the first of these questions is kept in mind, we may be said to limit our inquiry to the visible world, perceived or perceptible. In its extended sense this domain can be said to comprise that of physics.When a man puts to himself the question, who am I? He has to do with the knowledge of factors, which are not merely physical. He has to rely more on concepts than on mere percepts derived from sense data. He introspects or speculates on general ideas mostly taken for granted by common sense experience. Such ideas are largely relied upon in the matter of arriving at any degree of certitude in metaphysics, which is the other aspect of knowledge, besides physics under reference here.
His whole vision vis-a vis - the physical world, together with his own subjective experience, which is not experimentally demonstrable, thus emerges into view as the legitimate and unified basis of our enquiry, containing the domains proper to physics and metaphysics. Physics is quantitative while metaphysics may be said to be qualitative. If physics gives primacy to space, metaphysics may be said to give primacy to time. If physics is phenomenal, metaphysics is noumenal. If physics is relative, metaphysics tend to look at this relative plurality in the light of something that is non-relative. When physics and metaphysics thus understood are treated unitively, so that the certitude contained in the one helps the certitude contained in the other by mutual verification, we have a beginning of a Science of the Absolute.
Science in its progressive and triumphant march and as it is now understood is faced with the problem of incertitude rather than certitude which it thought it was gaining. The inductive-hypothetical approach to the formulation of scientific laws or theories, based on calculations found permissible according to prevailing practices in mathematics yield at present varying pictures of the physical world. Scientific myth making is a danger to which we are becoming more and more exposed. When science is thus being allowed to part company with common sense, man becomes confused, both about what he should doubt as well as what he should believe. A normative or integrated notion of the Absolute can alone act as a regulative reference in this matter.
The notion of the Absolute
The notion of the absolute has gone out of favor in the world of modern thought. This notion often leaves a bitter taste behind it when mentioned in the various contexts of modern life. In politics this bitterness is felt at its worst, as absolutism is quickly associated with totalitarianism, fascism or dictatorship. The absolute religious authority of the church has also contributed to this aversion, nay horror in the best of modern western minds. The excesses of the inquisition and of the witch hunting, associated with the regime that has now been superseded by what is called the age of enlightenment of reason, has given to skepticism a more dignified position than to any dogmatically authoritarian set of beliefs. The very notion of the absolute, although implicitly taken for granted by almost all western philosophers, from Hume to Hegel, has begun to be at least explicitly discredited. Modern philosophy is sometimes characterized as being non-absolutist and analytical.
When we keep these modern prejudices in mind, we know in advance, the very title ‘Science of the Absolute’ will raise doubt and suspicion about the tenability even taking one’s position on the side of the notion of the Absolute. Our excuses for taking such a position is that modernism, especially modern scientific thought, has made it imperative for us to drastically revise epistemological, methodological and axiological foundations, whether of philosophy, or science or both.
United science knows no frontiers
Unified science cannot recognize any frontiers, nor can it set itself any limitation between the various scientific disciplines. It must form an interrelated whole with a proper absolutist epistemology, methodology and axiology. It must also transcend the limits of language, tragically referred in Bible as babelization or confusion of tongues. Parochial cultural values vary from one geographical unit to another. Linguistic frontiers exist between vernacular and vernacular. Tradition and custom also contribute to the crisscross patterns that across and divide common human understanding, making for any specialized and closed branches of their own. The bane of compartmentalization and over specialization of departments of knowledge is an impediment, rather than a guide to a healthy and intelligent life.
Conceptualism and perceptualism ought to lend validity to each other without either one being given exclusive primacy. The a priori approach and the a posteriori approach often interlace promiscuously making scientific literature sometimes resemble fable and even myth, and almost violating the standpoint of common sense. A unified or normative science based on the notion of the Absolute, can alone serve the branches of human enquiry. Thus it would be possible and necessary to transcend geographical, cultural and lingustical frontiers if anything like a unified science to emerge at all. Without this both physics and metaphysics treated unilaterally are bound to confuse the healthy sense of human values, which alone can guide purposefully and consistently to his natural goal.
An integrated Science of all sciences implying both normalization and the renormalization with reference to the domain of percepts has become in our times an imperative need.
(from the book 'An Integrated Science of The Absolute' by Nataraja Guru)
